


Of Two Worlds

by teicakes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Desert Island Fic, First Kiss, Galra Keith (Voltron), M/M, Mentions of Drowning, Merman Shiro, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-27 14:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17768270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teicakes/pseuds/teicakes
Summary: Shiro had always loved the stars.He’d spent countless nights watching them twinkle overhead, spinning slowly around his head like a great distant halo. He’d tracked their patterns, followed his favourite constellations over the horizon and greeted them when the reemerged seasons later. Shiro had counted every falling star he’d seen, a running tally etched in the soft stones that made up his home. Some of them would spin around the horizon out of sight, or others would burn out in the middle of their path. No matter his best efforts, he’d never managed to find one that made it down to Earth.Star 143 was different though.Star 143 brought Keith.Or else, Galra Keith crashes down to Earth only to befriend a stargazing merman who can't take his eyes off him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fonbella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fonbella/gifts).



> This is a gift for Fonbella on twitter, who asked for, among other things, Galra Keith crashing to Earth or a mermaid AU. To which I was like:
> 
> Anywho, I hope you enjoy! It's in three parts and I'll post the other two chapters later this week!

Shiro had always loved the stars. 

He’d spent countless nights watching them twinkle overhead, spinning slowly around his head like a great distant halo. He’d tracked their patterns, followed his favourite constellations over the horizon and greeted them when the reemerged seasons later. Shiro had counted every falling star he’d seen, a running tally etched in the soft stones that made up his home. Some of them would spin around the horizon out of sight, or others would burn out in the middle of their path. No matter his best efforts, he’d never managed to find one that made it down to Earth. 

Star 143 was different though. 

Shiro watched from the waves as it fell. It was larger. Hotter, it’s light a broiling orange instead of the usual cool-crystal blue. And it kept getting bigger and bigger, until it was no longer just a mere speck in the night’s sky. No, 143 continued to grow, larger and larger, until the ocean around him glowed with it’s light. 

And with a great shaking impact, it crashed into the waves, sending him spinning in its wake. 

Shiro sputtered around seawater as he tried to catch sight of it again. A star… it had landed, and close to him… He could still see the trail it had left, a smoky haze blowing away in the sea air, barely a mile off from where he’d been floating on his back, welcoming the Great Bear back after the winter. 

He’d made his choice before he’d even realized his tail was moving. He was finding that star, seeking out 143, and making sure it’s journey hadn’t left it bruised and battered. How would stars like the ocean anyway? They were light, and not all light liked water. Fire disappeared in instants, but phosphorescence lived beneath the waves. Shiro chewed his lip as he swam closer to the impact site. He hoped the star hadn’t been fire. To travel all this way, only to drown before it could see the world? 

Shiro’s fins sped up. 

He could see traces of the star’s landing in the water now, ghostly trails of bubbles rising up through the depths along the star’s path. The went down,  _ deep down _ , down so far that he could barely see where they started. 

No light seemed to lie at the bottom of the trail. 

Shiro turned a loop, diving down deeper as he tried to intercept the visitor before it was gone for good. The ocean wasn’t terribly deep here, maybe 200 meters at most, but still, he didn’t think it would be much appreciated by anyone other than merfolk like himself. At least it didn’t seem to have landed in the middle of a settlement. Out here in the open ocean there was next to nothing, just a few small shoals and outcroppings. If he hadn’t been so set on settling down where the stars were brightest, he doubted anyone would have ever seen this at all. 

He could see the outline of something on the bottom of the seafloor now, a great spikey, mangled mass, faint purple light coming from within. So it  _ was _ still okay, at least for now. Shiro breathed a sigh of relief, slowing as he moved closer to the sandy crater. 

The star was… different than he’d expected. They’d always looked so round and even up in the sky, but this one… well… it was long.  Two jagged, rocky wings striped with red, like a great metal seagull spanned the site of the crash. One seemed to be broken, snapped at an odd angle as the other cut deep into the sand. The source of the light was the center of it, a little bulb nestled between the wings and tail, groaning and creaking from the force of its landing. Shiro was about to move closer, inspect to see how hurt it was, when a rush of air left the body, and with it, something else. 

There was something escaping from it. 

Shiro froze, diving belly first into the sand as something sprang from the star’s groaning body. Compared the star it was tiny, smaller than a dolphin, limbs spiraling erratically as it attempted to crawl towards the surface. It had two legs, connected to a torso not unlike his own, and arms, arms that fell to the same sides of its hips when it desperately pushed the water past them. His breath hung in his throat, gills forgetting to work as he caught a glimpse of it’s head, the flowing hair, the delicate nose, the two small forward facing eyes...

It was a human. 

A human had come out of the star. 

Shiro could only watch as the person continued to struggle to swim up, fingers clutching at bubbles as if they could buoy it further. A cloud of them erupted from its mouth, a hand clamping over the loss as they realized their mistake, air breaking up in the thin mesh. The scattered light of the moon was still far, far away from it. The human began to frog-kick again, more desperate, panic screaming from their movements now. 

He bit his tongue. 

He knew the rules. Knew he was never supposed to interact with them, no matter the reason. His kind needed to remain safe, undetected, or risk being fished to extinction like so many of their fellow sea creatures had been. Even when ships broke down, when submarines exploded, or the great metal birds broke as they collided with the surf, they were supposed to turn a blind eye, and let nature take its course. 

He knew that, but it didn’t make watching it for his first time any easier. It was still a living thing, so out of it’s element but still struggling to survive. He could only imagine what it would be like to be dropped in the middle of land, ocean just a blue line on the horizon. He’d hope for help then too, a miracle, anything to get him back to where he wanted to be. 

The human’s movements were slowing now, oxygen almost gone. It was no longer moving up, struggling to even stay at the level where it was now. It was weak, almost gone, just as soon as it’d arrived. 

As it’s arms stilled, Shiro made his choice. 

He caught the barest glimpse of the stranger’s eyes as they flickered closed, their body crashing into his chest as he powered his way up towards the surface. Another small bubble left it’s mouth, and Shiro found himself clamping a hand over the human’s lips and nose, trying to seal whatever air was left inside and keep the water from creeping in. 

They were close. No more than forty meters, but his heartbeat was racing in his ears all the same. The human’s pulse was weak in his arms. 

Twenty. 

Almost there. 

Shiro broke the water like a torpedo, shooting into the air so high his tail nearly left the surf. Droplets rained down on them both as he bobbed back to the surface, slapping the human’s back. It sputtered, body convulsing with coughs as it hacked out the ocean filling its lungs. Shiro tensed as he felt it’s nails dig into his arms, felt it’s chin bounce against his shoulder, and then it was going slack, slumping over his chest as it went still. For what felt like the hundredth time in minutes, Shiro’s heart sped up. 

“Hang in there… just… hang in there…” Shiro tried to worm his fingers under the clothing on the human’s wrist, or down the collar of their top, but the fabric held fast. There was too much padding, it was impossible to find a heartbeat through it. He juggled the unconscious body, looking for crack, a sliver of skin, letting the human’s nose fall against his neck.

He could feel warm air against his gills, faint, but there. 

It was still alive. 

“Thank god,” Shiro breathed, carefully cradling the human’s face closer against him so he could feel the reassuring drag of air against his skin, a sign his charge was still alive. He’d managed to save it. Which meant now…

Now he had to find someplace safe to take it. 

* * *

Shiro counted his lucky stars there’d been an island nearby. There was no way he’d have been able to carry the human back to civilization, not with its weight dragging him down and the risk of being spotted, or it waking up. 

The island in question was tiny, a little outcropping of beach and trees that rose out of nowhere. From what Shiro knew, there were no other humans there, just birds and bees and plants, the perfect place for him to grunt and struggle to pull the human above the tidal line and still make it back in one piece. Out of the water it was a lot heavier. Muscular for sure… no wonder it was struggling to swim up, as small as it was. He dragged it up on it’s back, scraping sand across his belly and getting it all throughout the human’s long dark locks. 

Actually… Shiro paused, taking in the human he’d dragged up on shore. 

It looked somewhat different from the descriptions of humans he’d heard before. It’s ears were more pointed, almost like his own earfins, and covered in short, downy hairs. Twin marks ran down its cheeks, and its skin, as smooth as he’d been told, was tinted purple. Shiro ran a finger over its cheek, and then its lips, taking in the colour. Despite the delicacy of its face, the long lashes that rested on its cheeks, it very much appeared male. It’s clothing suggested that too, pads accentuating the muscles of its shoulders and chest. When his thumb rubbed up against its lips they parted, revealing small teeth, slightly pointed in the corners. It let out a little sound, a small whine, deep in its chest, and stirred where it lay in the sand. 

Shiro jumped back. He eyed the water, some ten feet too far away for comfort, and then the human.

It made no moves to get up. In fact, if anything, it had dug itself deeper into the sand, almost burrowing in, right cheek flopping onto the fine grains. He sat there, frozen and hoping to god it wouldn’t look his way should it get up, but it didn’t. All it did was let out another whine and a cough.

Slowly, Shiro returned to its side, noticing, as he did, the purple tint to its hair as well. Strange. He wasn’t aware humans could have that colouring. But it had all the limbs, it had the proportions. Humans turning blue (or purple) wasn’t entirely unheard of either, and as if in echo of this thought, it curled closer in on itself.

It was a strange human, but a human nonetheless. 

Shiro took one more look around them, sizing up the island. If birds were able to survive here, so would the human. It would probably only be a matter of time before other humans came in search of it. They were like that, always following each other when one disappeared. He just had to watch and wait until they did, and then that was that, the human’d leave, and they’d both go back to their normal lives. He’d saved its life, something he probably shouldn’t have done, but so long as he was never seen, there was no harm. It would simply assume it had drifted ashore. He’d disappear back into the waves and out of the human’s life. Nothing more. 

He turned back to it, now shivering slightly in the night air. It definitely was cold, the purple of its skin turning even deeper as cool night air blew over its sopping wet body. It needed protection,  _ heat _ , or else it might not make it through the night. If it didn’t wake up soon, there was a good chance it wouldn’t at all. But that was out of his hands, right? He was just responsible for it in the water not the land, what happened up here out of his element was none of his business. Still… he watched as it shook in the sand, brows worried with chills. 

This wasn’t an ordinary human. It hadn’t appeared the normal way, from boats or land with large tanks on its back or fishing lines in hand. It had come from neither of their worlds.  _ A human that fell from the sky _ . What if… what if it was out of its element in both their worlds?

Shiro bit his lip.

When he came back to the human’s side, it was with palm fronds in fist, belly scraped pink from crawling around the forest’s edge. Carefully, he tucked them around the human, then went back for more, wrapping it until the lines in its forehead were no more. It made another sound, this one almost a purr, and curled smaller under its blanket. Shiro brushed more of its wet hair out of its face, so blank and innocent in the throes of sleep. 

_ It would be safe _ , Shiro decided. He’d keep an eye on it, make sure it survived. He owed it to the stars, to look after the life they had let tumble into his own. 

* * *

Keith woke to the feeling of small legs crawling over his own and sun beating down onto his face. His whole body hurt, like he’d been knocked through the ringer and then some. He’d been having the craziest dream. Fire and falling and water and drowning and darkness…. So much darkness… and then…warmth. Strong arms. Almost as if the crash had never happened at all.

He shot up, spraying sand and leaves and scattering the few small shelled insectoids that had been investigating his calves. 

_ His ship. The crash _ . 

Nowhere to be found. In front of him there was nothing but miles upon miles of water, and one tiny strip of sand between him and that deep dark terrifying blue. Not even a trail of smoke, no pieces of shrapnel. 

Nothing. 

The only signs he’d ever been on his ship and gone through the wreckage of a blast were the beat up padding of his flight suit and the faint ringing in his ears.

He’d been on a scouting mission, deep cover for the blades, looking for the final remnants of Voltron or any hiding Alteans. He was to be silent, unseen, slipping past barricades and enemy territory to make it to the last known signal of a lion. As he’d passed the rusted red planet his detectors had picked up on something faint, and when he’d flown over Earth they were all but screaming at him something was there. 

He’d been in the middle of trying to triangulate the signal, figure out where it was coming from, when it happened. Something struck his ship. 

Keith just managed to spot the solar panels and antennae of a primitive satellite splintering away from his craft in all directions before the alarms systems kicked in. A direct hit to his right engine, a shot so good he could swear it was purposeful. Which led into its fair share of actual swearing as his ship listed to the side, then began to spiral down towards the surface. Before he knew it it was too late for him to try and change course, plummeting directly into a dark patch of the planet his sensors were screaming at him was water, and there was no time to redirect himself to the several small clusters of light he’d seen miles away from him. 

Really, all there’d been left to do at that point was brace himself and pray. 

And of course his luck was crap, his ship sinking without so much as an attempt to float. He’d weighed his options, trying to radio for help from within his cabin, or jump out as soon as he saw the cracks starting to form in the windscreen. And then that water. All that water… so so much, the lights so far away… the struggle, the blackness creeping in…

And then nothing. 

He was here. Safe on some type of a beach. And Keith had no fucking clue how that had happened. 

The light from the planet’s small star beat down him, almost too cheery and warm for the mood he’d woken up in today. From the looks of it, somehow he’d managed to wash or crawl up on shore, grab a large pile of leaves, and drift off to sleep. More than a dozen of the large, jagged things still covered him right now, leaving him uneasy and on edge. How had he done all this without remembering it?

He pushed off the last of the pile and surveyed his surroundings. He was on a small beach, trees behind him, a shallow shelf extending in front of him before dropping off into a sharp blue nothing barely even 50 meters in front of him. From the looks of the trees curling around the edges of him landing site, and the disappearance of his little beach, he’d wound up smack in the middle of nowhere. Keith reached behind his back, only to come back empty handed. 

No communicator. 

No blade. 

He spun around in the sand, leaves sent flying, tiny shelled sand-insects scurrying away from him as the tore up the beach looking for a sign of a pommel or glint of steel, but nothing appeared. Even in the shallows that stretched out for yards in front of him there was nothing but aqua blue and swaths of sand. He scurried up to the tree line, hoping,  _ desperately _ , that he might have dropped it hacking off his makeshift blankets, but no such luck. 

His blade was gone. His only trace back to his family. 

Keith sunk back into the sand, fingers threatening to rip his hair out as he tried to think.

Of all the luck he could have had, managing to wash up on some tiny fleck of an island, he’d managed to do so without so much as a way to defend himself, let alone call for help. Finding his ship would be an endeavour into the impossible as well. There was no sign of it anywhere in the waters he could see, and if it was elsewhere, somewhere deep deep down in that dark, murky blue…

Keith shook. There was no way he’d be able to make it down there to find it. Galra only tolerated water. Flourishing there… well, you’d have better luck getting two robeasts to breed than you would getting him more than shoulder deep in any dark mysterious abyss. By the looks of it he’d lost his helmet too. No air, no way. 

So that left him here, stranded on an island in an alien world, trying to figure out how to survive. 

Keith turned and sized up the forest in front of him. He’d need food, as well as shelter if he was going to make it through more than just a few days here. Once he had all that going for him, well,  _ then _ he could try and figure out how to get back off world. He cracked his knuckles, looking into the maze of greenery, a smile forcing its way through gritted teeth. 

“Well… guess there’s no time like the present.”

* * *

Shiro watched from behind a rock as the human stretched and set out into the forest. It had taken the better part of the morning for him to come to, so much so that Shiro’d been worried something had happened to him after he’d left a few hours before dawn. But on all accounts, the human seemed fine, a light bounce in his step as he made his way into the wilds. He was about to turn tail, head back into the open ocean to catch some dinner, when he heard a loud noise. 

Something not entirely unlike a curse word. 

Well, he did have time today. 

He could just see the human’s head through the leaves, pointed ears high and peaked as he continued to curse at something out of Shiro’s sight. 

“Stupid… stupid fricking muck! What are you doing in the middle of a tropical island?” A wet slopping noise broke from the trees, and with it, the sound of regret. Shiro could just catch the human’s leg swing skyward, momentum sending him tumbling backwards flat on his rear. Or… Shiro was pretty sure it did. He looked away at the last second. 

“Careful…” he breathed, watching as the human got back up rubbing his side and carefully began to pick his way around the offending sludge. If not for the laws and the sheer undeniable annoyance of crawling around on land, he was tempted to help him. 

Soon enough the human disappeared into the forest entirely, leaving only the sounds of branches snapping. Shiro eyed the water again. He really should be going, he’d done his part to help… but then again. The human  _ was _ out in the middle of nowhere. There was no way he knew the terrain at all, even if he’d grown up on islands like these. And then there was his arrival. 

_ Falling from the stars _ . 

He couldn’t just let that pass him by. 

Shiro spent the better part of an hour swimming around the periphery of the island, keeping the human just in earshot at all times. Ever so often he’d emerge onto another rocky faced beach or small outcropping to survey his surroundings, and then back into the trees he’d go, mumbling to himself. The human was fast after his false start, easily circling the isle in no more than half an hour, then diving back into the forest again for a second look. Now when he stepped out from the greenery there was more confidence on his face, a sense of familiarity and right that had some of the tension leaving Shiro’s shoulders. 

He was adjusting. That was good. He no longer seemed as nervous as he trekked around. Once Shiro caught him scrambling up a tree like a monkey, hands and legs moving so fast that for a second he thought he was one. His dark haired head broke the canopy, one hand shielding his eyes and he looked out around him, face silent, eyes wide as he took in his surroundings. 

Against the wonder in his chest, Shiro slipped out of sight, waiting until the human climbed back down. 

But for as much as the human seemed to be adjusting, he was also getting frustrated. Shiro watched as he began to make his third pass of the island, jaw and teeth now set as he looked around the ground and trees for something. On his next pause at an outcropping the human wiped his brow, tongue swiping out to lick dry lips. 

Shiro felt his stomach drop. 

_ Water _ . The human needed water

There was no way of knowing if there was a spring or source on the island, and even if so, Shiro had no idea if it would even be safe for the human. And clearly, by the way he was now sticking to the shade, the human thought so too. 

Shiro worried his lips into a frown. All the water around them was filled with salt. Of course, the human might be able to get some water from fish and squid, but he had no idea if it would be enough. Or if the human would even like that. There might be some fruit deep in the forest too, but of course he’d have no idea unless he ventured in there, and crawling around defenseless on his belly while the human wandered about was the last thing he wanted to do. 

Although… 

Shiro eyed one of the coconut palms hanging low over the water, its long fronds swaying in the breeze. 

There was one source of drinkable water that wasn’t out of reach. 

> * * *

Keith had made 5 passes of the island, and at this point, he was sure of it. No signs of civilization, not so much as a rope or footprint or scorch mark. He was alone here, which was both a blessing and a curse. Blessing, because he didn’t have to worry about being spotted by the local aliens. There’d been plenty of reports throughout the galaxy about Earth, and although they were all very similar (no advanced weapons systems, quite peaceful, ridiculous merchandise), they all said the same thing about contact.  _ Do not show yourself unless you want them making a huge fuss over who and what and where you came from. _

Curse of course, because he had no way off this little strip of land. And as he was steadily realizing, without a decent source of food or water. If he’d been thinking he could have brought a pack of rations with him from his ship, but then again, it had been an all out battle to swim to the surface without being weighed down with twenty pounds of food, so he figured hunger wasn’t the worse compromise there. 

Still, it didn’t make the itch at the back of his throat any better. He made his way back to base camp fantasizing about fizzy juice and squab with gravy. If he was lucky maybe he’d manage to catch one of the birds he’d seen up in the trees, but then again, he’d need to figure out how to clean and cook it without a knife. There were some sharp, shale like rocks further inland… maybe if he took his time he could make some type of weapon or tool, but still, he’d also need to make a trap as well. Extra time that’d just continue to add to the growing stirrings in his stomach. Still, it wasn’t something he couldn’t do. For now he’d get back to his landing site for better bearings, then-

Keith stopped as he made his way back onto the sand. 

There, lying on the leaves he’d been sleeping under, were three fat round fruits that had  _ definitely _ not been there when he’d left. Three big dewy green fruits glistening in the midday sun, casually lying there as if they’d found his sleeping site the perfect place to settle. 

Keith stalked around them with caution. 

A branch was grabbed from the forest floor and used to prod every inch of sand in front of him and around the fruits. No traps, no trip wires. The ground beneath the fruits and leaves was not dug into a pit to trap him, at least, no more than how much he’d burrowed into the sand last night. He poked one of the fruits, then the others. No ticking. No sudden blast or noise. Everything seemed safe. 

Actually…

Keith crouched down and prodded one of the fruits again. He hadn’t noticed at first, but this one’s flesh had been damaged, smashed in on one side, revealing the meat within. As he poked it again it tipped, something splashing out. On instinct his hand shot out to catch it, only to pull back as it slopped over his fingers. 

_ What was he doing? He didn’t even know what was in it.  _

Nothing happened though. No tingling of his skin, no searing burn on noxious fumes. In fact, if anything, it smelled sweet. Against his better judgements, Keith raised his hand to his face and sniffed. 

“God… mom would kill me,” he groaned, before letting his tongue swipe out for a taste. 

What his his mouth was cool and refreshing. His whole wrist was to his lips before he knew it, sucking every last drop of moisture from his skin. It might not have the same taste, might come in a strange container, but his body knew water when it tasted it. These fruits had water, and the question of how they got there could be put aside as he plucked up the broken one and brought it to his mouth, downing the liquid within. Only when he finished, thirst deliciously quenched and hand dragged across his lips, does he stop and take pause. 

The other two fruits were both still wet, and if he swiped a finger across one of them and sniffed, he’s returned with the brine of the ocean. So they were in the ocean earlier. Keith eyed the beach, the tide having risen several feet up the shore since he’d last been back. No other footprints or signs of other sentient beings were anywhere, just a few bumps steadily washing away in the surf.

There was a chance they could have just washed up here, rolled up to his makeshift bed with a rogue wave. Still, it brought into question how three of them made it all together, and how only one of them was damaged on landing, barely spilling any of its contents. 

He eyed the remaining fruit again. Definitely unlikely, but still possible… Really, how else could they have gotten there?

He sighed, collecting the other two fruits and retreating into the trees from the midday heat. So he knew a source of water now. He just also had the mystery of an invisible hand now too. 


	2. Chapter 2

The island was… quaint, for lack of better, kinder terms. Even if it was without electricity, without red meat and with a few dozen more bugs than he’d like, there were worse places he could have ended up (the bottom of the ocean for one). Keith counted himself lucky.

Within the span of a week he’d managed to carve out his own little camp, a small shaded structure of large tree leaves and wood for shelter from the heat, and on one blessed evening, rain. He’d managed to find more of the water fruit, carefully preserving the husks to hold bits of other fruits and on that one evening, fresh rainwater. He’d made a knife… or maybe 6. It was starting to become almost a hobby or craft to do in the hottest times of the day, slowly working himself up to more intricate designs as he got better with each one. Nothing like his own blade, but still, more than good enough to cut vines and cave up fish. 

Fish, as he’d found out, were far easier to catch than the birds. Even if he had to wade waist deep into the water, waves washing up over his belly, he could make a good meal from next to no work. All it took was some well set up nets, a rise and fall of the tide, and he’d have a handful of catch to feed him for the next few days. 

The island at night though… that was a different story. 

On his third day Keith had spotted tracks in the underbrush on the far side, great, slithering marks like the body of an enormous serpent. A pile of fish wasn’t far away, tucked beneath a tree like the great creature’s stash. Despite the supply of meat, no birds were present. 

Keith avoided that side of the island now. He’d started sleeping up in the treetops, weaving a makeshift hammock to keep himself from falling out of the branches. There was no telling when the creature would be back again, but he was sure it would be. 

The next time he ventured back to that side of the island, the fish were gone. More tracks were carved into the dirt, some long dragging marks almost like the fingers of a victim, dragged away by it. 

Up in his hammock that night, knife clutched closely to his chest, Keith shivered. 

He knew there were no humans on the island. But if there was a reason for it, well… he’d rather not meet the cause face to face. 

The next day he’d set out in search of fresh waterfruits. Halfway to the west side of the island, he saw them. 

More tracks. 

Keith froze, hackles raised, ears listening for a single snap of a twig that could signal ambush, but there was nothing but distant birdsong. After several long moments, he finally let his guard fall somewhat, enough at least to kneel closer to inspect.

Fresh, but not recent. If he had to guess they were made in the night by the thing, whatever it was. His eyes swept over the surrounding area. Every few feet, he could spot another stamp of a five fingered foot, dragged through the dirt, and a dozen feet in front of him, a great many at the base of a tree, covered in a shower of leaves and-

Waterfruits. 

Almost a half dozen at the base of it, laying haphazardly across the ground, as if the mysterious creature had thrown itself at the plant and shook it, not caring what fell on top of it. 

He was damn well happy he’d decided to nest up in the canopy now. 

He was also pretty freaking happy the thing didn’t seem to be able to climb trees, even if the sheer number of prints around the snaking trail suggested it had paws of some type. 

Still… it had him on edge. Enough of an edge to gather up the waterfruit on the ground, head back to camp, and start setting up extra defenses. 

* * *

Shiro knew he really shouldn’t keep checking up on the human. He really  _ shouldn’t _ , but he just kept finding himself passing by the island. He  _ just so happened _ to have extra catch with him, and  _ just so happened _ to feel the best place to leave the fish was up on land where the human might see them. 

He also might have… after realizing the human hadn’t found the fish in time before gulls got them, decided to knock a few coconuts down from some of the trees, make scavenging just a little bit easier for him. 

He also definitely, cross his heart and hope to cry, slap a flounder in his eye hadn’t been spending his afternoons peering over the rocky outcropping that sheltered the human’s little cove, watching him work from inside his little shelter on carvings of some type. And if he had… well… hit him with a flounder. 

Shiro loved to watch the human’s hands move, loved to watch those movements of his hands echoed in the expressions on his face. Short, choppy strokes were met with quick crinkles of his nose, long, smoothing stages with a peaceful air of contemplation to them. Artistry had never been something Shiro was very good at, but even as a young fish he’d spend hours watching his grandmother create gorgeous necklaces of shell and pearl, and the human’s work was no different. There was something about the reverence he seemed to hold over the simple craft, the way his whole body tuned in to the task at hand that made it impossible for Shiro to tear his gaze away. 

At least, until the human would come out of his creating daze and stare out across the water, making Shiro duck for cover and dive shamefully back into the sea, chiding himself the whole way home. 

It wasn’t his fault. The human was just… captivating. On that island, away from his society that kept Shiro’s kind in secrecy, he was stripped of all those symbols and taboos. He was just another being, trying to make his living out here in this great wide world, one with delicate hands and soft wispy hair that blew around his cheeks when the winds picked up. He was making more things now, carving notches in pieces of wood, weaving leaves and vines together, all with such focus Shiro swore he could have crawled up on shore to watch and he’d be none the wiser. 

He didn’t of course. 

That didn’t mean it wasn’t tempting though. 

Soon enough the human’s clan would come in hunt of him, find him here and take him back with them. There, back with the rest of his kind, there would be no stopping him from describing Shiro, pointing hunters to his spawning grounds, and causing them to descend on his territory in search of a fish of legends. That was was the only thing keeping him from approaching, from doing more than catching the occasional extra fish and tucking them into the human’s rudimentary trap in the shallows. Soon enough he would be gone, and it would be best if Shiro stayed as he was, a shadow at the sidelines, just out of sight. 

In the end, it had been the human’s star, the one he’d fallen to Earth in, that kept Shiro from risking detection. Studying the human from afar was risky, leaving him open to detection. His star though… the exact opposite. 

Unlike Shiro had though, the star hadn’t disappeared. It still lay on the bottom of the ocean in the same position it had landed, the only differences a few schools of fish that had decided to try it as their new home. He’d always thought stars turned to nothing after they fell from the sky, but apparently not. Like the human’s, they must only lose their light. It made exploring the husk of the star difficult outside of the brightest times of day, but Shiro managed. 

It was hollow on the inside, a small system of caves filling out the main body. The pointed wings, the portions that must be responsible for the swinging twinkles up in the sky were packed to the gills with strange ores and hard snaking fibres, almost as if it was half stone, half sinew. As curious as he was, he didn’t probe deeper into them. It felt wrong, taking apart something that had been so beautiful, scavenging it like the bones of a great whale. Instead he carefully tucked any dangling pieces back inside, tried to return order as best he could to its body. 

It was on his fourth visit that he noticed it. He had been exploring the main body of the star, the portion with the great cracked shell of seaglass filled with so many spots and antenna across the inside it made his head spin. There was a portion of it that was different, almost plush, smack in the centre. He had been touching it lightly, trying to determine what it had been. It’s tongue perhaps? Or even its heart? Whatever it was, it was far too soft for the feeling of cold stone beneath his hands to be a part of it, wedged into the crevice where it bent forwards. It took some careful prying, making sure he wasn’t hurting the star more than it already had been, when he finally pulled it out.

A knife. 

Shiro’s mouth went dry as he turned it over in his hands. It was beautiful, sleek and ornate, blade curving from tip out and then back in partway down, only to flare out once again at the handle. In the center was an emblem, the same faint, glowing purple as the star had been the night it had landed. Despite the obvious wear in the the bindings of the handle, there was no denying how well cared for it was, cleaned and kept like it was revered by the owner. And here it was, jammed into the insides of the star, so deep it couldn’t have been anything other than purposeful. Whoever had left it there, had left it for a reason.

Shiro ran a hand over the star’s brain(? Heart? tongue?) and looked down at the knife in his hands once more. 

There was no questioning who it belonged to. 

The only question was how it had come to be stabbed there. And why. Questions that, even if Shiro knew he shouldn’t ask, he needed to. It didn’t fit with the image in his head, the gentle expressions and long wistful looks he caught the human making at the cosmos when he dared to approach the island at night. The way he looked at the stars, quiet and contemplative, but with a turn to his eyes, one that had Shiro feeling longing and sorrow. It didn’t match the blade wedged inside this broken light that had plummeted into the sea. 

Against his better judgements, Shiro needed to know. 

* * *

Keith had been doing well enough the past few weeks. He’d found another type of edible plant on the island, along with a few rocks that looked promising to start a fire with. He’d been seeing less and less signs of the strange, mysterious serpent with paws (one he was convinced had been part snake, part lizard). Even if he kept his traps out and spent his nights sleeping in the trees, he was becoming more and more comfortable in his little refuge. He’d even started to carve little figures out of wood and sandstone now, ways to pass the time instead of simply for survival’s sake. It was starting to feel more and more like home. Enough that that night he had gone to sleep without a blade at his side. 

He awoke hours into the night to the sounds of thrashing and screeching. 

It was one long shriek, a noise of surprise and terror, and then Keith’s tree had begun to shake with the others surrounding his campsite, bits of leaves and bark raining onto him. 

Something was there. 

Something was in his camp. 

He bolted out his hammock so fast his tree groaned with the motion. The waterfruit he kept up there with him for late night thirst fell from his bed, landing on the ground with a thud. 

Suddenly, everything went silent. 

The trees no longer shook, not so much as a growl or whimper came from the shadows below Keith. Whatever it was had stopped moving, frozen by the noise of the fruit hitting the ground. Keith barely even dared to breathe, it was that quiet. He hung there, from the branch, listening for the slightest noise.

Evidently, so was the intruder. 

Seconds dragged on into hours, or at least they felt that way as Keith strained his ears forwards, trying to hear something, anything over the sound of waves lapping up against the shore. He could see nothing down below, not with the moon tucked away behind clouds. Then, after what felt like the fifth hour, so long his knuckles were white on the branch, body nearly cramping with how tightly coiled it was, he heard it. 

Rustling. 

Careful this time, the barest shaking of the leaves on the tree to his left. Whatever it was, it was aware that something had caused the noise nearby, and now it was set on not disturbing it again. If he strained his ears Keith could hear more. Little puffs of breath, huffs and grunts, rustles and creaking. He hung there, tuning in to every single noise, when it clicked. 

His snare trap. The one he’d set up long ago for whatever the giant beast was. It had caught something, And considering the size of the net’s weave, whatever it was, it was big. 

As silent as a shadow Keith slid down the tree onto the ground below. He knew better than to believe whatever it was was fully caught. It could be just a paw, or a tail trapped, or it was simply playing dead until a juicy little galra appeared in front of it to snap up in its jaws. He wasn’t taking any chances. He took two of his knives from his supply, and still quiet as the night, crept his way towards where the trap was laid. 

Sneaking closer now, Keith was able to pick out a shape bound in the net. A great dark mass with small bits hanging out here and there, jostling its bindings but doing little else to move. It was definitely big, and definitely caught. If he squinted, he could just make out the curve of a body, a sleek powerful tail that coiled around in its container. Keith sucked in a breath.

This was it. He’d only have one chance to deal a blow before it realized he was here. Surprise would be everything. 

Eyes closed, ears open, he let himself tune into the night. Every leaf blowing in the wind, every wave on the shore, he heard, then tuned out. Background noises filtered bit by bit, until all Keith’s ears heard was the shallow breathing of the creature, rising and falling where it swayed. 

He attacked, just as moonlight broke the clouds. Keith launched himself across the gap, dagger glinting, muscles firing, the adrenaline of battle coursing through him. He cleared it in milliseconds, arms raised, knife poised to strike, and locked eyes with the intruder. 

Not cold, unfeeling reptilian eyes. Mammalian. Intelligent. On a face far too Altean in shape to be a simple animal from this planet. Wide and frightened and now sheltered behind an arm with five perfect fingers attached.

Keith stumbled just as the alien’s mouth opened in a scream. His knife dropped to the sand, a shriek leaving him as well as he tore across the clearing to the safety of the brush. There, knelt behind it’s leaves, his heart hammered away inside his chest. 

He’d caught a human, and it had seen him. 

Keith knew a little about humans. He knew they were the dominant species of Earth, that they were smart, but still lagged far behind other races in the realms of technology and space travel. And most importantly, they did not take well to visitors from other worlds. 

For the backwater planet that it was, there had been more than a fair share of drama surrounding adventurers and scientists looking to meddle. Panics across full continents of the planet... governments cleaning up the messes left by intergalactic tourists... In the end it had simply been decided it was best to leave Earth to its own devices, its solar system labeled as a reservation for less advanced species. Of course, there were still the occasional troublemakers who still landed, fucked around in cornfields, and then posted their handiwork to galaxywide message boards, but even that small minority was enough to keep humans wary of neighbours from beyond the stars. And those idiots didn’t even jump out in front of one and scare it half to death.

Like he’d just done. 

Keith groaned, wracking his brains for what to do. The human’d seen him, there was no denying that. He could hope that it set itself free and ran off to wherever it had come from, counting on the fact its friends would think it was crazy…. Or he could release it himself and let it get a better look at him, hoping it would just keep quiet. 

Yeah, neither option was that great. 

It was now dead silent where the human hung in the net. For a second Keith thought it might have fainted, only to remember the other shape with it with a sickening lurch. Humans didn’t have tails, that much was clear from what he knew. Meaning that something else was in the net with it. Something that, maybe, at this very moment, was slowly smothering it to death. 

As much as a giant snake-lizard eating the human would solve his problems, Keith wasn’t exactly the type to let a monster do things for him. Especially one that would probably be back for him later. 

Besides, a meal that big would give it energy to spare.

Grabbing the second knife he’d picked up, Keith stalked back out from around the bush, ready for a fight. He stuck to the shadows, hoping to be able to make quick work of things without any more screaming, but that might just rely on the element of surprise.

The mass in the net was even smaller now, the human’s face half-covered in a giant scaly tail. Even through the darkness its eyes were locked onto him, mute. Keith took another step forwards and the tail moved, jerking to fully cover it’s head. If he squinted, he could just make out where the dark scales ended and skin began, right at the human’s waist. It was already half swallowed. 

“Don’t… don’t panic…” he tried, hoping his translating nanodes still worked. “I’m going to get you out.”

The human’s eye jumped out from behind the tail, now reaching incredulous levels as Keith slunk ever closer, still eying the mass swallowing it for places of weakness. 

“Just… I don’t know, relax or something. And if you don’t tell anyone about this it would be a heck of a lot easier for me.” Keith was babbling, still trying to spot an eye or another feature on the scaley thing he could hit that would hopefully leave the other half of the human mostly unharmed. So far nothing, aside from some pale frills that extended from its sides, far to weak and detached to be that essential. “Are you okay? Is there someplace that I can cut? Anywhere I should try for? C’mon, help me here, I’m not exactly sure how to deal with this kind of stuff.”

The human continued to stare at him, eyes dancing from his knife to his face to the scales and back again. “You’re not supposed to see me,” it blurted out, in a voice that though nervous, was a heck of a lot calmer than it should be for someone being eaten. 

Keith stopped in his tracks. “What?”

The human pressed its lips together, still staring at him with eyes that blinked far too infrequently for comfort. “I’m… I shouldn’t be here.  _ You  _ shouldn’t see me, it's too dangerous.”

“Well, I think where you are now is already dangerous enough. Just help me cut you out of there. Where should I start?”

The human blinked at him. “Leave it,” it said. “If you could just put it on the ground right there and let me get out myself it’d be best for the both of us. Just… leave me to deal with it.” The whole mass in the nest shifted and the tail flopped further onto the human’s face as it stuck an arm out to grasp at the ground below. It seemed entirely unconcerned with where it was stuck. Or what it was stuck  _ with. _

Which just plain wasn’t making any sense. 

“No.  _ Wait... _ ” Keith said, waving his knife at the thing enveloping half the human’s body. It jumped as it swung over its belly. “You’re stuck in a net, getting eaten by Bob knows what, and you’re telling  _ me _ that the worst thing here is me  _ seeing you? _ ”

“Well… yeah. Wait,  _ what? _ ” Both the human and the thing with it started moving. Keith took a step back, knife still drawn. “Getting eaten? By what? That’s….” It laughed for a second, before going silent again. 

“Wait, you’re not thinking of… because that’s totally a legend, it’s not true, it’s just some dumb myth someone made up decades ago and now somehow it seems like every single human seems to think eating us will make them immortal. It’s fake!” 

It was getting even more restless now, the beast on top of it thrashing in the netting as the human wiggled around, grip so tight around the human’s waist it was as if they’d almost fused as one. Keith took another step back, waiting for it to strike, to launch itself further onto the human or even himself, but it didn’t. Instead the tip, covered in thin fanlike frills shoved its way out of the largest loop at the top and dangled in front of his face. He froze, the appendage hanging inches away from him, shedding sand and droplets of water, and with them a smell. Something familiar that Keith couldn’t quite place.

The human was still talking, babbling more like it, the tail fanning his hair and making even more of that strange scent waft over him. They moved as one, almost as if the human and the tail were part of the same thing, but that was impossible… humans were the only advanced race on this planet.

“I mean… you can try. Not bite, but… maybe lick? I’m telling you, whatever you’ve been told, eating me isn’t going to do anything to a human like you.”

Keith blinked. “What?”

“I said eati-”

“No, not that.” Keith lowered his knife, stalking around to stare the human in the face. “You said human. As in...  _ ‘human like you’ _ . Do you… do you think I’m human?”

The human’s brow wrinkled, and for a second Keith noticed how its pale eyebrows contrasted against its skin. He could feel its eyes boring into him, scrutinizing every inch of his face. He felt a fist clenching around his stomach and squeezing. He’d passed for human. In the dark there was no telling his skin tone, no distinguishing his ears from his hair. But now, as the human’s gaze pierced through him, he wasn’t so sure. It was fixated on the marks on his cheeks, the two stripes that he shared with his mother, marks human skin couldn’t recreate...

“... Aren’t you?” it whispered. “I… I thought… you  _ had to be _ . You had to be one of them.”

Keith’s heartbeat slowed. “Aren’t… aren’t you?” he echoed. 

‘ _ One of them’.  _ It still rang in his ears, like the dizziness after a blow to the head. It didn’t make any sense. Humans were the major intelligent life here, there were no other reported species, nothing else that even matched the description of the male he was staring down right now. But he’d heard it, clear as day. First calling him human, then calling them  _ them _ , as if it wasn’t even one of them _. _ As if it was  _ something else _ .

They both stared at each other in silence. Neither moved, neither breathed. Nothing but the night and each other existed in that moment, two not-humans here, on an island in the middle of nowhere, face to face. He studied it closer. It really looked… it had the complexion of one, the brows and arched nose, the setting of the lips and the monochromatic eyes, without reflection of the low light of the stars in it. But if he looked closer, he could pick out faults. The thin slits in its neck and down its sides, the slight webbing between its fingers. And the ears… not the small, rounded things Alteans had documented eons ago with disgust. Long. Thin. Almost like sails extending from its temples, dark stormy grey against moonlit white. 

The alien seemed to reach the same conclusion just as he did.

“I thought it was strange…” it murmured. It seemed calmer now, less concerned with his presence than it had been a moment ago. “You came out of nowhere, from the sky of all places. Falling with a star. Humans don’t belong in stars… they just… don’t… But you did. You were in it. So that means....”

Keith sighed. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human, that was for sure. Which meant telling it the truth shouldn’t be an issue.

“That’s right,” he said. “I’m not from Earth.” 

He stilled, studying the stranger. He’d never seen him before, not in his life, but there was something oddly familiar about being beside him now. And what he’d just said. About falling from the sky. It couldn’t be a coincidence, there was no way he could know about that, not unless-

Keith leaned in closer, until he could count individual hairs on the stranger’s head. This close, he could tell they were damp, gelled together with moisture in a small twist at the front of his face. Almost pure white, in contrast to his eyes, dark as galaxies. The stranger moved, and once more that smell pressed against his nostrils, so familiar, and yet...

Keith pressed his face forwards, the other male’s breath catching as his nose pressed into the soft skin of his neck. His eyes fluttered closed and for a second he was brought back to that night, to the sounds of water lapping against his body and the subtle warmth of that spot, wrapped in that same fresh smell against the brine of the ocean. He could feel the other’s body shiver as his chin bumped his collar bone, hear the speeding of his heart. When he pulled back it was to the stranger staring at him, mouth hanging open, still as a windless night. 

“You were the one that saved me.” 

The aversion of those dark eyes was all Keith needed to know he was right. 

“You’re… you’re the whole reason I’m alive right now. You saved me after my crash, you’re the reason I woke up here. I’d be dead without you… at the bottom of the ocean. I…” he bit his lip, a mix of emotions bubbling up before he was thrusting his hand out towards the other without thought. “I… I’m Keith.”

The proffered hand seemed to confuse him for a moment. The stranger, whatever he was, was staring at Keith, mouth still half open. Then, slowly, so slowly Keith thought it was a trick of the light for a second, he extended his own.

“Shiro,” he said, as cool fingers clasped his own. There, lit by streaks of moonlight, Keith could pick out small streaks of silver scales like stars across his skin. Two worlds bridged for the briefest of moments, completely unaware of the other’s existence until now. Keith didn’t know what to say, not even as they both pulled back and their arms fell to their sides.

Shiro wiggled about in the net for a second, before shooting Keith a sheepish look.

“Do you… do you mind cutting me down?”

Oh. Right. His trap. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. One sec.” He grabbed a vine of the weave and hefted himself up the hanging package, the branch attached to it bowing dangerously as he did. Working quickly, he sawed off the vines attached to two corners. He’d spent too long on this weave to let it all get torn to shreds. Both him and Shiro tumbled to the ground, him on his feet, Shiro in a somewhat less than graceful heap. The scales that covered where his legs should be moved with him as he sat up, the muscles of his hips veering down into the meat of the tail.

Yep. That tail was definitely a part of him. 

“What are you?”

Shiro dusted himself off before looking back at Keith. He seemed to debate himself for a second, but just as Keith picked up on it the uncertainty in his face was gone. “Merman. We’re mainly water dwelling and keep to ourselves. Humans aren’t exactly the safest things to be seen by for us. And you?”

“Galran,” he shrugged. He was pretty sure the type of alien he was wasn’t that important to Shiro, but then again the merman seemed pretty unphased by the whole ordeal, or at least, as unphased as someone could be for meeting an alien for the first time. “Not from this galaxy. We’re not really supposed to come to Earth, humans tend to freak out.”

“Yeah, they do that when they see something else that can look and think like them.”

Keith watched as Shiro maneuvered himself around in the sand and how he lifted the sail-like fins at the tip. They were like the ones by his ears, except lighter, a gradient bleeding out to white as they left the deep grey of his tail, with another two smaller ones at his sides as well. He half-dragged, half-crawled himself towards the beach in something like a waddle. Keith stared down at the dirt behind him, gobsmacked. It was uncanny. 

“You’ve… you’ve been all over this island, haven’t you?” he blurted out.

Shiro stopped, looking up at him with a sheepish grin on his face. “Maybe?”

“It didn’t have anything to do with fish, did it?”

Shiro was silent, but actions spoke louder than words, his ears and other fins drooping slightly as he traced a finger through the sand. Keith crossed his arms. 

“I thought there was some huge carnivorous lizard on here with me, but it turns out it was you the whole time? If you were so worried about me not seeing you, why were you on land? You just said you belonged in the water.”

“Well…” Shiro cleared his throat, still looking down at the sand. “I might have been the  _ teeniest _ bit worried about you fending for yourself.”


	3. Chapter 3

As it turned out, Shiro had been doing more than just leaving a stinking pile of fish on the ground and knocking a few coconuts around. Over the next day or two the merman admitted to leaving the first three for him to find, covering him in palm fronds, placing fish in his trap, and even, on a few occasions, leaving pieces of driftwood and shale for him to use in carving. 

“W-why” he stammered when Shiro confessed, and the merman had tucked his face behind his shoulder, glancing at Keith from the corner of his eye. 

“Because… I like watching you work. When you make stuff you’re just so…  _ invested _ it’s hard to look away.” He gave Keith a sheepish smile, a look that was becoming so common on that face that Keith was beginning to associate it with him. “You’re not mad, are you?”

“No…” He’d said it slowly, still processing it, looking down at his hands as he did. “I’m just… surprised, that’s all. It’s not something you’d think others would be interested in.”

“Do you mind then?” Keith had to look at him, and Shiro had licked his lips, those dusty pink lips, and scratched his neck. “If I keep watching? I’ll help you find whatever you need to make things.”

And so it had become a ritual of sorts. Keith would spend the morning harvesting fruits and tending to his campsite, and just as the sun was starting to descend in the sky Shiro would appear at the water’s edge, materials in one hand and fresh catch in the other. 

Keith started to wonder how he had been living without him before. Although he hadn’t exactly been without help before, Shiro could gather things he could never find on his own. Kelp and seaweed that dried tight and strong for bindings, rocks and shells he’d never seen before. And the food…  _ god _ … after surviving on mainly fruits and plants the meat Shiro brought him was heavenly. Usually fish like the ones he usually caught, but sometimes shellfish, sweet buttery clams that melted on his tongue and had tears beading in the corners of his eyes. And the prickly little urchins, filled with soft orange meat so creamy and perfect it had him back across the kitchen table from his mom shoveling steaming mouthfuls of her homemade stew into his mouth as she smiled at him over her own plate. 

A few times Shiro tried to get Keith to join him in the water, splashing him from the surf and teasing him until Keith waded in to put a stop to it, only for him to charge further out and repeat the entire thing unti Keith was up to his chest in water, ears flat against his skull as Shiro swam around him. 

He was completely different in the water. So graceful, fluid. Keith watched with his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth as Shiro’s head disappeared beneath the surface, his body zooming around the crystal waters like a bird in flight, scales shining in the midday sun. When he breached, sometimes Keith would forget to breathe. His entire body launched in the air, back arching, body hanging in midair as droplets continued to fly around him, before all too soon he slipped back down into the sea with barely a ripple. 

And then there was himself, ungainly and awkward, making his way through it more like syrup than an element an extension of himself. Every time a wave smacked against his chest and splashed his chin he’d tense, feet digging into the sand, but it was hard to not want to be there, a part of Shiro’s dance, feeling the currents of his tail swirl around him. 

Then of course, a rogue wave had to spoil it all, bowling him head over heels into the surf and spinning him so far around he lost track of up and down. Shiro’d dragged him coughing and sputtering back into the shallows, resting Keith’s chin over his shoulder as he clapped the last of the ocean from his lungs with a strong hand. He couldn’t help but feel a strand of guilt as Shiro apologized, promising he wouldn’t bring him so far out again. 

“Just… not so deep,” he wheezed. “Let’s keep it somewhere easier for me to stand back up when I fall.”

They mainly kept to the shallows after that. He’d sit at the high tide line in the early afternoon with a knife and some wood or stone, and disappear into the place where his hands took over and mind went blank, focusing on teasing out the shapes hidden within it and bringing them to life. After Shiro had mentioned the way he worked it was hard not to be conscious of it. He really did tune out the world, letting it narrow down to the tool in his hand and the wood in the other. Sometimes he would focus in on his hands, how thin his fingers looked beside the thick branch, how sometimes they would do something without him understanding quite how. It was like his body had a mind of its own and he was simply channelling for it. 

He could come out of that space, sometimes hours later, to Shiro lying beside him, hair almost dry in the time he’d spent silently at Keith’s side. 

The first time Shiro’d laid close enough to touch him, Keith had jumped and carved a deep gash into to whistle he was making. Now he would hardly leave his thoughts when Shiro’s cheek pressed against his thigh, the merman so close and engrossed in his work Keith could put his knife down to find his pale locks filled with wood shavings. 

Soon enough, he started to miss the merman’s presence when he wasn’t there. A companion, even one in silence, was something he didn’t realize he needed. Shiro wasn’t one to ask too many questions either. He simply tuned in to Keith’s aura, slipping into the space he needed him most. Sometimes that was simple chatter, other times quiet contemplation. He didn’t pry about why he was there at all. He simply took it at face value. Keith had come from someplace outside of Earth and now he was here. It was as simple as that. 

Nearly a month after he’d crashed onto Earth, Keith finally managed to set a fire. 

He’d spent ages trying different methods. Two sticks spun together, a dried vine twirled around a shaft, even, on one desperate attempt, trying to reflect the light of the sun off his armour. Nothing quite worked. But Shiro had brought flint for him to carve the other day, and today, instead of settling down with a knife and his current project, he’d spent the better half of an afternoon working to nurse the little embers in his firepit to life. 

He’d almost cried when they sparked alive against the dried coconut husks of a next he had made for them, feeding them bit by bit as they grew from a tiny flicker into a steady flame with every piece of wood he fed it. Soon enough, he had a roaring blaze going, crackling away in the sand. 

Fire. He had fire. Warmth and heat and light and with a surge of pride he couldn’t wait to show it to Shiro. The merman had probably never seen one before, at least, not up close. And he definitely, 100%, had never had cooked seafood. 

That afternoon, waiting for Shiro was even harder than usual. 

Finally, just as the sun was starting to almost kiss the horizon, that now familiar head of white hair poked out of the waves. An arm joined it a second later, waving emphatically as Keith raced into the shallows to meet him. 

“Keith! You’re not going to believe what I was able to find!” He was dragging a net behind him, loaded full of shells and fish. “I know I’m later than usual and all, but there kept being more and more. I found a whole bed of oysters, and then there was this school of mackerel, and some scallops, and-”

“Shiro!” Keith was practically bouncing on his heels as the merman started his slow clambering up onto land. “I’ve got something you’re going to want to see. Up by camp!”

The merman looked up at him, combing his bangs from his face with one swipe of his hand. “Is it a surprise? Cause I have some too.”

“Kind of? Come on, hurry!” His eyes flicked back to the firepit, trying to gauge if it was starting to die back down again or not. Bringing Shiro to see a smoking pile of embers wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. 

“Just give me a second, would you?” Shiro laughed, slowly hauling his way across the beach. Keith had never been so frustrated at low tide in his life. He wanted Shiro’s reaction, and now. 

“You’re pretty slow, y’know,” he chuffed. 

‘Yeah, well, you’re not exactly beating any sea cucumbers when you wade around in the shallows, you know.”

Keith pouted for a second before bending down to scoop the merman up. 

Shiro squawked as Keith hefted his bulk into his arms. He was heavy, no doubt about it, but he’d carried worse. Nowhere near as bad as having Antok drape himself over him trying to pin him to the ground. To Shiro though, it definitely wasn’t just another training exercise. The merman went from from wiggling in his arms to throwing an arm around Keith’s neck trying to avoid falling out of his grip. His bag of catch bumped against Keith’s leg as he strode up to the treeline. 

“You’re… but I’m heavy,” he mumbled, chin tucked into his chest.

“Trust me, you’re not that bad. My uncle used to make me practice carrying him in case I ever had to rescue someone, and you’re lighter than him.”

Shiro’s lips pressed together, as if forming a protest, but none came. Instead he slung his other arm around Keith’s shoulder, letting the Galra carry him the rest of the way up the beach. 

He felt the warmth of the flames before he saw them, head turning against Keith’s shoulder as he moved to stare down into the small pit dug into the ground. The bag of sea life fell to the ground in time with his jaw. 

“Is… is that?”

“Yeah,” Keith smiled, gently setting Shiro down at the fire’s hearth. “It’s a fire. Just managed to make it today.”

Shiro watched it dance in front of him, entranced with small coil of smoke and bright orange light. “It’s so tiny,” he whispered, as if so much as breathing could cause it to go out.

“It is.” Keith sat down cross-legged beside him, watching Shiro’s face all the while. The merman didn’t so much as look away for a second. “I didn’t know if you’d ever seen one before.”

“Pictures… and sometimes the light of one in the distance. But never up close like this. Is this what it’s like? It’s so warm…” he reached out, fingers just outside the range of the furthest flickers. 

“Yeah, it’s really hot.” Keith gripped his wrist, gently pulling it back a few inches. “It can hurt if you get too close, be careful.”

Shiro nodded, setting his chin on his hands to keep watching. “It’s so beautiful.”

Keith watched as the firelight glinted off Shiro’s scales in the dying evening light, silver turning gold everywhere warmth kissed his form. His face looked softer too, eyes taking on a subtle hint of brown to them as well. Like a moon turned sun, he thought. Dawn to daybreak. 

“Yeah… it is,” Keith smiled. 

* * *

Shiro was blissed out, stuffed to bursting with food and spread out across the sand, staring up at the stars. Beside him Keith was similarly spread out, the Galra rubbing his stomach and letting out little purrs of satisfaction. 

They’d feasted tonight, Keith showing him the wonders of fire and the things it could do. He’s let Shiro help it grow, feeding it branch after branch until it was nearly as tall as his torso, the heat coming of it as hot as a rock at midday. The way it slowly stripped away the outer layers of bark, turning them bright red before slowly transitioning to black, then ash white had been something in itself. But when Keith started taking clams and burying them in the sand around it, and when he’d speared a fish on a stick, Shiro’s mind had been blown. The smells coming off them, smoky-sweet aromas, had his mouth watering and stomach growling right up until Keith had handed him one, watching with eager eyes as he took his first bite. 

And then, well, they’d gone through a catch he’d thought would last them two days.

The fire had long since died down since then, just a pile of faintly glowing coals out of arm’s reach. Without it, the night air took on an extra edge of chill, one Shiro’d never realized until now. He could hear the sound of Keith’s homemade knife shaving wood now, but he was too comfortable to roll over right then, perfect well carved out in the shape of his body. Instead he gazed skyward, up into the bright and cloudless night. 

There was only the barest sliver of a moon tonight, and in its place the stars shone brighter. He could see every light in the great bear that pointed north to its cub, pick out the great bird who’s wings spread across the sky. If he let his eyes relax, look beyond the lights, he could even pick up the subtle glow of the Silver River that weaved its way through the sky like a pearly residue across the blackness. Pearls… like the two they’d found in his catch today. It made him stop to hunt for the bright lights of the summer triangle and their warm white twinkle, before following their path back across the sky to the set of stars he was born under. The bound fish… tied at a star he’d long thought was his own.

A thought struck him all of a second, one he’d let slip to the back of his mind all these past weeks. 

“Keith.” His voice almost sounded too loud in the still night. “Do you have a star?”

The Galra’s knife stopped its movements. Shiro could see him look over at him from the corner of his eye, lips parted, eyes wide. 

“I… I do. But I’m not sure how easy it is to see from here.” His carving was set down as he sat up, staring up into the cosmos. “It’s dozens of lightyears away from here, and then again, that’s just the one I was born on. It’s hard to tell exactly here… the stars look so different, but I think… if I’m right, it’s that one there, right between those two bright ones.” 

Shiro followed the path of his finger, straight to a faint twinkle that sent a jolt straight to his chest. Right in the heart of the circlet of larger fish, a faint light pulsing almost like a heartbeat. Keith’s home star. So small, right within his own constellation. All these years he had been there and Shiro’d been none the wiser.

“It’s… I know that one,” Shiro whispered. “It glows gold, unlike the others.”

He could hear Keith moving beside him, feet digging their way deeper into the beach. “Yeah, well, it’s just the one I grew up near. I had to leave it when I turned of age and go to another one.”

“And… and that one? Where is it?” His fist knotted in his fins, against the smooth handle he’d kept concealed at his side ever since the day he’d found it. He’d pressed the question down all this time now, how Keith had gotten here and why he’d crashed to Earth with his star. Ever since finding the blade he’d been searching for the star that had disappeared, but so far to no avail. For so many years he’d believed a star’s descent only happened when it grew too old to stay aloft. That nothing could touch them. But the knife… that brought so much of what he knew into question. A question he desperately hoped he was wrong about.

Keith’s brow creased, mouth pressed thin as he glanced between Shiro and the stars. “I’m not sure. It’s not exactly big and bright, I don’t know if you can see it.” His thumb was stroking up and down his carving now, ears sloping downwards. “I don’t… I don’t know if I can show it to you, I’m not-” He sighed, looking down at his feet, then back again at Shiro. There was something like regret there, cold and dragging down Keith’s face like the chilly downpour of a storm. 

“Does it really matter that much to you where I’m from?”

Shiro felt the cool press of metal against his side more than he had all these weeks. “Not… not exactly, but still… can you not point it out to me? Is it not up there?”

Keith bit his lip. “I… Shiro. Shiro… it’s meant a lot to me that you haven’t asked me stuff like this all this time. It’s hard to talk about, it’s not exactly something I want to bring up, especially right now.”

The clams in his stomach were starting to feel more like stones, tugging his belly further and further into the ground. “But… can you? Please Keith, I just want to know where you came from before landing here.”

Keith’s voice was low, with measured evenness. “Does it really matter? I… I’m here now. Shouldn’t that be all that counts?”

“Yes, but-”

“But  _ what  _ Shiro?” Keith’s voiced snapped, an edge of steel creeping into it. Shiro shrank back, but he held steady all the same. No more avoiding the subject, no more pretending Keith had appeared here through different means.

Shiro licked his lips. “Because,” he said, voice catching in his chest. “I have to… I need to know… did you kill it? Did you kill your star?”

Everything froze in that second. Keith, Shiro’s heartbeat, time strung razor thin as they stared at each other. He could see everything. The shock on Keith’s face, the tightness of his fist in the sand, the way the faint gold of his eyes seemed to dim. Shiro felt like he might choke, heart lodged in his throat at that sheer expression, the complete and utter shutdown in his being. 

“What?”

“Your… your star. Or **_a_** star.” It was hard to force the words out, but Shiro made himself all the same. “You… you fell to Earth with one. You came out of it, left it there, with a knife stuck inside it.” He pulled the blade out from behind his back. There was no mistaking the look of recognition on his face or the sound of pure shock that came from his companion.

“Where did you…”

“Keith…” he breathed, cool metal digging into his palm from how tightly he held it. “I like you a lot… I.. when I found this, I didn’t quite believe it. I still don’t  _ want  _ to believe it. All these weeks of knowing you, spending time with you… you don’t seem like the type, but…” He gripped it harder, so much he swore its emblem would be seared into his palm for hours. “You haven’t talked about it once. You don’t talk about where you were before, or how you got here. That sort of thing... it makes me doubt what my gut tells me is right. And my eyes… my eyes know what I saw. I saw you come out of that star when it died and I found this stuck in the softest part of it, right at the heart where you’d come from. So… so please, tell me. Tell me if you killed that star.” His voice trailed to a whisper, pleading as his heart hammered in his chest. “I… I need to know Keith.” 

Keith sat there, motionless, eyes flicking back and forth as Shiro lay there wondering if he’d made a terrible mistake. If Keith had done it, killed something so strong and immortal as a star, how hard would it be for him to use his new knife to attack him now?  But… this was Keith. Keith… who loved scallops and carved works of art from nothing. Keith, who fearlessly launched himself from tree to tree but startled the moment a wave splashed his ears. Keith, who carried him so carefully, like something precious, as he’d hidden his darkening cheeks against his shoulder. It wasn’t possible…  _ except, maybe it was. _

He expected anger, he expected denial. He expected shock and guilt or for Keith’s ears to fall to the sides of his neck as he explained the truth. 

What he didn’t expect was laughter. A fit of giggles so unexpected Shiro jumped back in the sand as they burst from Keith’s lips.

“Shiro… oh my god… Shiro…” Keith ran two fingers around his cheeks, pinching his chin as he continued to roll with laughter. It was Shiro’s turn to be motionless, rooted still by Keith’s reaction. “I’m… I’m so sorry. I know I shouldn’t be laughing, but… but I can’t help it. It’s just too cute.” He wiped his eyes, smearing the traces of tears back into his bangs. “Is… is that why you kept pushing? Why you didn’t ask me until now?”

“I… maybe?” He was still very much stunned.

Keith smiled, wiping his cheeks as little puffs of chuckles continued to sneak through. “God… I’m sorry… I know I shouldn’t be laughing, but… that wasn’t a star Shiro, that was my ship.”

“Ships don’t look like that.” He said it like he wasn’t quite sure it was real, as if none of this was real and was some delusion he’d landed in the middle of. “They have sails or motors and float on water and-”

“Not that kind of ship,” Keith said with a wave of his hand as his laughter died down. His smile remained though, as bright as morning sun. “A  _ spaceship _ . Something for travelling between stars. You can’t ride in a star, they’re not solid. And you definitely can’t kill one, they’re too powerful for anyone to ever be stupid enough to try.”

_ What?  _

He was completely lost now. 

“I…. okay, give me a second.” Keith shook his fingers out, fighting down the final traces of giggles as he picked up his carving knife. “Alright. So, uh, first things first… Stars. Even though stars look really tiny from here, they’re actually enormous, thousands of times bigger than the Earth.” He drew a tiny dot, then a large circle beside it. “The reason they look so small in the night sky is because they’re so far away, far enough for them to look like little pinpricks, or even further so that you can’t even see their light with your naked eye. So far it takes years even for light to travel between them and here. And they’re not made of metal or anything solid or ridable. They’re big balls of plasma.”

He took one look at Shiro’s face, blank and confused, before trying again.

“Err… okay, it’s like fire. Hot and bright and you can’t touch it without getting hurt, and if you try you pass right through it as it burns you.” He drew little cartoon flames around the large circle. “So.. you can’t exactly get inside one and ride it somewhere. And stabbing one isn’t going to do anything either. They stay where they are in the sky and there’s nothing you or I can do to change that. I don’t think there’s anything any living being could do to move one.”

Everything Keith said both made sense and didn’t. He could understand how it was impossible to hurt a big ball of fire, but one as big as Keith was describing? Or the sky being filled with giant fires so far apart it would take years to travel between them?

““But… but you fell to Earth in one. I saw it.”

“No I didn’t. That wasn’t… I-” Keith looked up at him, understanding dawning on his face. “Oh… My ship… you thought it was a shooting star, didn’t you?”

“Ship?” He didn’t trust his own voice right now. Everything Keith was telling him was borderline madness, but he was calm, smiling even as he continued to draw in the sand. Completely unlike Shiro’s erratically beating heart. “It… it was a falling star, wasn’t it?”

“You not totally wrong,” Keith said, drawing a miniature rendition of the large body Shiro knew rested at the bottom of the sea. “I get where it’s confusing. Shooting stars aren’t exactly stars, even if there’s still fire involved. They’re called that because they’re as bright as them when they fall, but they’re actually solid things catching on fire as they fall to a planet. Or at least, that was how my mom explained it to me.”

Shiro looked blankly at the little flames being added to the drawing of Keith’s ship. Naming things differently from what they really were was all fine and good. After all, jellyfish weren’t actually fish, same with sea pigs or lions or cows. But the sky setting things on fire?

He said as much, still staring at the drawing. Keith let out a small huff of amusement, corners of his eyes crinkling as he did. He was so relaxed… 

“Here…” He held out his hand. Shiro stared at it, not quite sure what to do. 

“Shiro… c’mon, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Carefully, he rested his fingers on top of Keith’s. A tingle ran up his spine as Keith gently turned his wrist over, until his fingers were cupped in Keith’s palm. The galra took his other hand and pressed it against Shiro’s own, before dragging it swiftly over the surface. A stripe of heat burned down the center even as Keith returned it to him, as warm as the feeling still tickling down to the base of his tail. 

“You feel that? The heat? That’s what friction does when you move really fast through the sky, it heats things up. And if you’re moving fast and keep speeding up as you fall, it can get to the point where there’s a chance you might catch on fire. That’s what happened for me. I… my ship. Something hit me and I ended up falling. Right smack in front of you.”

Shiro leaned back, trying to process it all. It was… a lot. Way more than he could ever have expected Keith to say. The Galra watched him carefully, head cocked, ears twitching. 

“Are you okay Shiro? Did I… did I say too much?”

“Just… just give me a second.” He rubbed his temples, trying to work everything into his brain. 

“So,” he said after a long moment, “so you’re telling me that what you landed here in, that wasn’t a star?”

“Right.”

“And it’s some type of ship. Some weird, pointy, can’t float at all ship special for flying through the sky. And the knife inside it… it was-”

“I dropped it,” Keith admitted, a small tint of colour appearing on his cheeks. “I usually have it attached to the back of my belt, but when I got hit it must have gotten wedged in the crack of my seat and come off. I’d been wondering what had happened to it for weeks. Actually was getting really worried about it… I’ve had it forever it’s almost like a part of me now.” He shrugged, glancing down where it remained in Shiro’s hand. “I guess it was with you all this time, safe and sound.”

The smile he gave Shiro was enough for the merman’s own cheeks to grow pink as well.

Keith moved a little closer, sitting at Shiro’s side now. “How long has that been bothering you? Why did you wait so long to say something?”

He looked down at his scales, where his hand still held onto Keith’s blade. It felt lighter now, less like a weight tying down his tail. “I don’t know if I was ready to know the truth. I think I had this image of you I didn’t want to break.” He smiled, a bitter smile, as he let the knife fall from his fingers into the sand. “I was going to… the night we ended up face to face, but you caught me off guard.”

Keith gawked. “All that time? And you just… let it be?”

Shiro shrugged. “Like I said, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the truth. Not if it meant changing who you were.”

Something soft replaced the blade in his hand. Keith’s fingers, sliding against his palm, as warm as the outskirts of the fire. When Keith spoke, his voice was soft.

“I… I’ve been trying not to think about it. The crash that is. With my ship where it is, deep…  _ deep down _ -” he shuddered, “- there’s no way I can salvage it and get it to fly again. There’s no way for me to get back home.”

“But… don’t you have family? Other Galra? You mentioned your mothe-”

“No, Shiro…” Keith shook his head, smiling sadly down at where both their hands rested. “I do… but it’s not like that. They’re not going to come looking for me, I knew that when I set out. Earth… no aliens are supposed to come here, we’re not supposed to scare humans, not after what’s happened in the past. I came here secretly, I had to sneak all the way into the solar system so that no one noticed me. They can’t come for me without risking being caught. I’m stuck.”

Keith’s fingers trembled where they rested against Shiro’s. He found himself squeezing them, his other hand reaching up to comb the hair beside the Galra’s ears. Keith’s eyes were turned downwards, too glassy to be fully dry. 

“Keith… Keith I’m sorry…” he breathed. And he meant it, he really did. He’d chosen to leave his family, to set up his place here, but Keith… Keith hadn’t had that choice. And unlike Shiro, there was no way to go back on it, no way to pick everything up and return.

“It’s okay…” Keith leaned into Shiro’s palm, cheek rubbing up against his thumb. “It’s not your fault. You’re actually the reason this isn’t all bad. Without you, my life right now would be a whole lot different. I might… I might not even be here.”

Shiro simply nodded. His throat was blocked, a lump wedged in it as he continued to stroke Keith’s face and hand. “I’m glad I was there too. I… being with you Keith… I haven’t felt this way in a long time.”

Keith let out a noise halfway between a snort and a sob, lashes squeezing shut as teardrops threatened to fall. “You’ve… you’ve made this so much easier for me Shiro. When… when I wake up I’m not thinking about failing my mission. I’m not thinking about how I might never see my family’s faces again. I’m just thinking about seeing you again, spending time with you, watching you swim and making things for you and having meals together and-”

Whatever Keith’s final words were, they died with a whimper as Shiro pressed his lips against the Galra’s. 

There was a hitching of Keith’s voice, the flicker of confusion and surprise as his lips tensed against Shiro’s own parted ones. Then... the warm, reassuring feeling of returning pressure. Shiro held there, eyes fluttering half closed, every sense tuned into the space where he and Keith connected. The Galra kissed first with hesitance, then with growing urgency, chin and cheeks rubbing closer as he opened up to ground himself against Shiro’s lips. He could feel his bottom one pulled between both of Keith’s, feel the hand he held tightening even as the other one slid up his chest to his shoulder, pulling them both closer as the kiss deepened. 

Keith was so warm… hot… almost like another fire, except this one surrounded him in crashing comfort and ease. Keith was safety, he was familiarity and the mysterious. He was new and as old as the sea and sky, an eternal presence Shiro had finally realized was well and truly there. All that and more, he hoped he could put into words with his body instead of his mouth as he let Keith press him down into the sand, until he was on top of Shiro, the two of them breaking their kiss only to breathe. 

“Me too,” Shiro whispered, and he meant every word of it. Every feeling that went behind those two syllables, every moment together, every moment apart, catching himself thinking of the next time he’d come face to face again.

They both stared at each other, chests heaving, lips as flushed and warm as their cheeks. Keith’s eyes shone, flecks of starlight reflected in the deep indigo of his irises, a galaxy all their own, head surrounded in a halo of moonlight. 

He was beautiful… a star in his own right. Keith could the steady thrum of his heart beneath Keith’s palm, the same beating he felt where his fingers rested against Keith’s neck. And as Keith leaned back down, their lips coming together once more, Shiro’s mind slipped once more to that thought and how right it was.

After all, he’d always loved the stars. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had an idea for an epilogue I didn't manage to get to until posting time was due, but I might see if I can write it once I finish my other exchange works I gotta do. I hope you enjoyed and thank you for the cute prompt ideas!


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